Montana State University Big Idea Challenge awards $13,500 to student entrepreneurs

BOZEMAN - Scores of Montana State University students pitched and showcased their entrepreneurial ideas in pursuit of funding at the annual Big Idea Challenge this fall.

The event, held on Nov. 19 in Jabs Hall, was hosted by the Jake Jabs College of Business and Entrepreneurship and the MSU Launchpad. Undergraduate and graduate students from five MSU colleges competed for a share of $13,500, with pitches in the categories of agricultural and food innovation; health and life science; products and services; and social impact.

Fifteen finalist teams competed at the event, selected from a record pool of 66 applications. Each finalist delivered a three-minute pitch with a slide deck to a panel of judges followed by two minutes to answer questions.

First-place awardees received $1,500 for their projects, second place received $1,000 and honorable mentions received $500.

The teams and awards are listed below:

Agriculture and Food Innovation

• First place: Wheat Roots - Megan Engel, Plant Sciences & Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture

• Second place: Ubuntu - Luke Ciesla, sustainable food and bioenergy systems program in the College of Education, Health and Human Development

• Honorable mention: Joe's Gelato - Joseph Re, Master of Science in Innovation and Management, Jake Jabs College of Business and Entrepreneurship

Health and Life Science

• First place: Kynex Biosensor - Matthew Herzog, Hadley House, Kenzie Radway, and Lucy Tourville, biomedical engineering program in the Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering

• Second place: Exhalo - Tate Baker and Lucas Gaston, biomedical engineering

• Honorable mention: CerebroFlow - Claurisa Davidson, Megan Lamping, Liv Reich and Maya Schmitz, biomedical engineering

• Honorable mention: uForce Labs - Kishwat Ijaz Malik and Samuel Roberts, mechanical engineering

Products and Services

• First place: DetailPro - Brady Schlapkohl, financial engineering

• Second place: Borash Design Co - Paul Borash, mechanical engineering,

• Honorable mention: Agent List - Ali Brown, Master of Science in Innovation and Management

• Honorable mention: Perch - Harrison Romney and Rowan Wren, Master of Science in Innovation and Management

• Honorable mention: SceneSync.live - Sergei O'Sullivan, Plant Sciences & Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture

Social Impact

• First place: Wolly-z - Riansares Pedroche, engineering exchange student

• Second place: Trilla Archive - Ashlyn Lieberman and Piper Reivich, marketing

• Honorable mention: Warriors Azimuth - Henry Bradford, Individual Interdisciplinary, Trevon Kentzel, Mechanical Engineering Technology, and Joshua Spillers, Psychology program in the College of Letters and Science

The competition was judged by a diverse panel of experts, as follows:

• Eric Fulton, venture partner at Two Bear Capital and former head of Global Telecom for Citadel Securities. Fulton graduated from the University of Montana and earned a master's degree in information security and assurance from Western Governors University.

• Lisette Herbanek, managing director of Ocean Azul, a Florida-based venture capital firm, and computer science and engineering graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• Jim Cole, managing director for PricewaterhouseCoopers' Managed Services practice with over 30 years' experience as an executive leader in managed services, business consulting, application and cloud technology. Jim has a bachelor's degree in marketing and computer information systems from Colorado State University.

• Aaron Schilke, an executive sales leader with over 20 years of experience with companies including Rippling and Zendesk. He has a bachelor's degree in business administration from Washington State University.

"Our Launchpad team was very impressed with this year's finalists and the competition was tough. It was great to see such diverse experience on the teams, with students from so many different programs across MSU," said Trevor Huffmaster, director of the MSU Launchpad. "Huge congrats to the all the finalists and we are excited to see the next steps with these amazing ideas."

MSU's Launchpad helps MSU students succeed in entrepreneurship and in their careers. Open to students, faculty and recent alumni in all majors, the campus-based Launchpad provides mentoring, opportunities for participants to grow their networks and find resources to help their businesses succeed.

More information about the Big Idea Challenge is available at https://www.montana.edu/launchpad/programs/big-idea-challenge.html.